In addition to the cytokine, some people would be predisposed to produce auto-antibodies. If they are not dangerous in normal times because of their low quantity in the body, in contact with an infection, they deploy massively and attack both our immune defenses and proteins essential to the functioning of organs.
-1611244865.jpg "“Rogue” antibodies at the origin of severe forms of Covid-19?")
- Autoantibodies could be the cause of severe forms of Covid-19.
- If the cytokine is still implicated, it would no longer be solely responsible for the attack on our immune defenses against our own body.
- Auto-antibodies attack both the immune defenses and the proteins essential to certain organs, such as the heart for example.
It has been more than a year since the daily life of the planet has moved forward to the rhythm of the Covid-19 pandemic. While there are still unknowns about this virus, certain issues were considered understood, such as severe forms of Covid-19. However, if the cytokine storm is indeed at work in the serious forms, it would seem that it is not the only phenomenon which attacks the organism. In an article posted on January 19, 2021 by the review Natureresearchers specify a mechanism that induces the body to destroy itself with its own antibodies.
A growing body of research suggests that the immune system may be mis-targeting when attacking the coronavirus. Instead of attacking the infection, the immune system turns against its carrier, this is called autoimmunity. At the very beginning of the pandemic, researchers were convinced that the cytokine was the cause of the severe forms, because the immune response it generated was too strong and massive for the body, which could not keep up, leading to cytokine storms. Researchers are now focusing their attention on the role of auto-antibodies, malicious antibodies that attack both the body’s immune defenses and proteins specific to the functioning of certain organs.
Protection that turns against the body
“Unlike cytokine storms, which tend to cause short-term systemic problems, autoantibodies are thought to cause longer-term, targeted damage.”, explains to the journal Nature Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University. Auto-antibodies are produced naturally by our body, but in much more reasonable proportions. However, during infection with Covid-19, some people would be predisposed to produce too many autoantibodies, which could explain the severity of the infection afterwards.
American researchers from Rockefeller University had also realized in September 2020 that 10% of patients, mainly men, affected by the severe form of Covid-19 had auto-antibodies which attacked their own immune system. Research is currently underway on 40,000 people to determine how many of them have pre-existing autoantibodies and whether their age, ancestry and gender distribution matches that of severe Covid.
.
-1611244865.jpg&description=%E2%80%9CRogue%E2%80%9D+antibodies+at+the+origin+of+severe+forms+of+Covid-19%3F){kind=link}